Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar being garlanded during a public meeting ahead of the State Assembly elections, in Samastipur.
Credit: PTI Photo
Patna: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the National Development Alliance (NDA), under the leadership of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, would break all previous records of victory and return to power with a massive majority.
Stopping short of projecting Nitish as the chief ministerial face of the NDA, Modi, while addressing two back-to-back rallies at Samastipur and Begusarai in Bihar, asserted that “the NDA will get its biggest-ever mandate in the State”.
Calling the Mahagathbandhan as ‘Mahalatbandhan’ (a derogatory term used for those wielding sticks), Modi said the leaders of the RJD-led alliance were the most corrupt. “Despite being out of power for decades, see the way they have treated their own allies: the JMM or the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) chief who somehow managed to get assurance on the Deputy Chief Minister’s post,” said Modi, while trying to drive a wedge among the constituents of the INDIA bloc.
'Jungle Raj'
Modi, who started his poll campaign by paying tributes to the former Bihar Chief Minister Karpoori Thakur, who was recently conferred with the Bharat Ratna, at Karpoorigram in Samastipur, asked the gathering to keep the rulers of "Jungle Raj" at bay. “The entire Bihar is saying ‘phir se ek baar, NDA sarkar, sushashan sarkar (once again the NDA regime, good governance government),” said Modi.
The Prime Minister asked the gathering to switch on the torches of their mobile phones. “When there is so much light, is there any need for a lantern?” said Modi, in an oblique reference to the RJD, whose election symbol is the lantern.
Rallying point
Modi's rally assumes significance in the sense that this was the first time in recent times that Modi spoke of the NDA contesting an election under the leadership of Nitish and returning to power under ‘Sushashan Babu’ (Nitish is referred to as Sushashan Babu for his good governance).
Last week, Union Home Minister Amit Shah avoided giving a direct response on the issue of who would be the Chief Minister of their alliance if the NDA was voted to power. “There are five parties in the NDA. All the newly elected MLAs will sit together and choose their CM,” was the cryptic reply of Shah, which further added to the confusion as to who would be the next NDA Chief Minister.
So much so that on Thursday, when senior Congress leader Ashok Gehlot declared Tejashwi Yadav as the Mahagathbandhan's chief ministerial face, the former Rajasthan Chief Minister posed a question to Shah: “We have declared our CM candidate. Now the NDA too should declare who their CM face is.”